Photo: @britneyspears/Instagram
She needs to be protected.
By John Sundholm — Written on Dec 19, 2022
Conspiracy theories about Britney Spears have become ubiquitous online, especially since the dissolution of her conservatorship under her father Jamie Spears in 2021.
And nothing has fans more suspicious than Spears' Instagram account, which has spawned theories about everything from greenscreen edits made by her husband Sam Asghari, to the notion that the singer is actually dead.
Most of those theories don't exactly hold up to scrutiny, but in the wake of blogger Perez Hilton's recent warnings about the singer, a new theory has arisen among fans that actually makes some sense.
Hilton claimed that concern for the singer is "warranted" and claimed an insider had revealed private information about the troubled star but declined to go into detail.
Fans, however, have been spawning their own theories.
Fans believe Britney Spears' public presence is being 'faked.'
Beginning around Spears' 41st birthday on December 2, the singer made a series of posts that left fans scratching their heads.
Chief among them was a glowing tribute to her sister Jamie Lynn, whom Britney has repeatedly excoriated for the role she played in her conservatorship.
The strange posts has sparked many fans to wonder if Spears is truly free of her conservatorship, and have led to many theories that Spears' 28-year-old husband Sam Asghari controls her Instagram.
Those theories gained even more momentum after a series of highly sexual Instagram posts, some of which have since been deleted, in which Spears appeared deeply sad, leading many fans to wonder if she had been coerced into taking them.
Fans suspect body doubles, greenscreen and deep fakes are used to trick them into believing Britney Spears is ok.
Spears has been the subject of conspiracy theories for years, and the scrutiny is intensifying amid her Instagram controversy.
Many fans take this theory even further, claiming her videos are fake altogether—either deep fakes or heavily altered green screen edits made by Asghari.
One such theory focuses on a December 14 video in which supposed inconsistencies with Spears' sleeves supposedly indicate that it is in some way faked.
The relative lack of paparazzi coverage of Spears and Asghari since their wedding has also led fans to question what's going on.
Fans are particularly suspicious of the couple's claims to have visited a Malibu restaurant, Nobu, on Spears' birthday and their recent trip to New York, neither of which seem to have generated any paparazzi photographs
Many fans think Sam Asghari is faking Britney Spears' content to cover up the fact that she's dead.
Theories about Spears' death have circulated for almost 15 years, ever since a supposedly leaked 2009 court document pertaining to her conservatorship designated her as "deceased."
The theory is highly implausible—most court documents are public record, so it seems like if the document were real, a legitimate source would have reported on it by now.
Still, the theory persists, with many fans convinced that Asghari's allegedly faked content and body doubles are part of an elaborate criminal cover-up.
Given Spears' own comments about her mental health over the years, it seems more likely her erratic Instagram presence is attributable to those struggles than some elaborate conspiracy theory.
Still, the inconsistencies in her content and the long history of control and abuse at the hands of those closest to her make it difficult not to be suspicious that something is still awry in Spears' world.
Fans also suspect Britney Spears' health has deteriorated.
Writer and Britney superfan Matty Heimgartner theorizes Britney's erratic Instagram presence is due to the mental health condition Dissociative Identity Disorder.
In a TikTok, Heimgartner, known as @fabulousmatty on the app, posited that Britney's behavior is a manifestation of the illness, in which trauma victims alternate between distinct "personalities" they've developed to protect themselves.
Heimgartner particularly focused on Spears' frequently changing speech patterns, often a feature of her Instagram videos, in which she sometimes speaks in a childlike voice and even occasionally in a British accent.
Her habit of slipping into an accent first arose in 2008 and sparked concerns about her mental health—including about DID—at the time.
Several fans agreed with Heimgartner's theory, pointing out the frequent memory gaps Spears seems to display, like when she recently said she had never been to a Jack in the Box prior to a recent incident with an employee there.
Spears was photographed at the restaurant several times in the 2000s.
Others pointed out that DID could also account for the strange inconsistencies in Spears' Instagram presence—especially a recent post about her sister, Jamie Lynn Spears.
However, with no comment from Spears or her loved ones, fans can only speculate and should continue to treat the star with kindness as she makes the difficult transition back into the public eye after years away.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.